Author: EmersonKing

Spike Lee is arguably the most famous Knicks fan on the floor each night. The man is committed, even after this brutal season. It’s interesting that after devoting his life to this one team– and certainly bringing publicity to the team– he doesn’t get the love back from the organization.

Phil Jackson said of Spike Lee, “Spike is an avid Knicks fan who doesn’t know anything about basketball.” Judging by that Knicks record, Phil, your triangle offense ain’t working either.

How might Lee, being one of the most famous Knicks fans, use his influence to further the African-American cause? Why might the organization push back on Lee’s association with them?

This final exam was a collaborative effort between @marquezdoee, @rpark16 (from blog 2), and @emersonking.

About an hour and a half into the film, Lysistrata comes face to face with Ol’ Duke and the rest of his sex-starved posse, The Knights. With a series of shot reverse shots, Lee constructs the sequence with a level of intensity that comes with any face-off, placing the men on one end and the women on the other. Throughout this sequence, Lee utilizes a combination of sound and image to communicate an interplay between the male and female characters on screen, a dynamic that causes a shift in power that begins with the Knights and ends up with the strikers.

Satire needs to have a cutting point. It needs intention, and in this film, the intention was unclear. That being said, we identified scenes interspersed throughout when Lee used form to make statements about power. When the men sneak into the armory to unlock the chastity belts, Old Duke decides to challenge Lysistrata. He insults her, asking the women “to be polite… bow down to the man.” Rather than give in, Lysistrata attacks the men’s masculinity. The sound design of the scene is important: we hear her heels but not his footsteps. When she smacks Old Duke, all of the men seem physically affected when their heads flinch. This is an exceptional scene from the film, and by that we mean both powerful, and an exception. We found Chi-Raq’s ending to be too digestible, and out of touch with reality. The film isn’t grounded in reality, but we are.

Throughout the film, we see women of color use their sexuality as a weapon.

Do any of you feel as though the discussions in this class are often too unapologetic to Spike Lee? The only reason I bring this up is because we discuss him as an infallible figure. Speaking generally, just off the top of my head, I’m thinking of sexist undertones in Mo’ Better Blues and overt homophobic themes in School Daze. Thoreau has an entire chapter, Baker Farm in Walden, that I found to be some of his poorest work which was irreprehensibly contradictory. This does not mean I reject all other aspects of Thoreau’s– or Lee’s– work because of specific pitfalls. It does mean I question certain parts of each mans work. Thoughts?

Oscar Micheaux is credited as the first African American film director. He was part of a movement in film, which was called ‘race films’, a somewhat condescending and reducing title for an ambitious and formidable school of film. Micheaux’s films stand alone as race films that actually dealt with issues of race and in … Continue reading →

We’ve all heard this phrase used in earnest before. It’s supposed to downplay or excuse something racist said by a white person by demonstrating their personal affinity for black people. It is meaningless and an extension of the racism expressed in their previous statement that they are now trying to cover up with the excuse … Continue reading →

Spike Lee has a firm place in the debate of the obligation of the black artist. Lee sits as an unwavering force in this discussion because he is a black artist making art about black people for black people at an unprecedented scale with an unprecedented audience. Get on the Bus, for several reasons, … Continue reading →

In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon addresses the appearance of blackness in black men and what it means to validate your black, male appearance. In lieu with that the idea that seeing black males, evoked memories of violence and following, feelings of fear in white people, I believe that there would have been an effort to […]

When I first watched Get on the Bus, I laughed out loud when I saw Isaiah Washington’s character. The laughter come from a place of being confused about his identity as a black gay republican and a vague memory of watching Grey’s Anatomy when I was in middle school. I found it interesting that in […]

This essay, by Bill Benzon, is one of the most sophisticated readings of Mo’Better Blues. I found it very resourceful for my final project. In this essay, he discusses; The Cultural Psychodynamics of Racism Discipline of Jazz: From Nature to Culture Destructiveness and Creativity: The Albatross of Romanticism The Blues in the Night Jazz as […]

TW: Sexual Assault The two aspects of School Daze that really rubbed me the wrong way were its handling of queer issues and its handling of sexual assault. In School Daze, Lee sought to portray HBCU life in all of its complexities. However, in doing so, I feel he used the issue of sexual violence and gay identity […]

As I mentioned in my last blog, I really wanted to do a film analysis of When the Levees Broke, but since I wasn’t sure how to go about it, I looked up some guidelines from a few websites. This film analysis website had the easiest step-by-step guideline, so I’ll be using it for my blog, but I’ll […]

I found Spike Lee’s 1996 film Get on the Bus to be an interesting, although not satisfying, look at Black American masculinity in its multitude of forms in the mid-1990s. One aspect of the movie that stuck out most for me was the depiction of queer (in this case, gay or MSM) identity. I was particularly […]